David R Breininger

Kennedy Space Center · Herndon Solutions Group LLC, NASA Environmental and Medical Contract

Land cover modeling is used to inform land management, but most often via a two-step process, where science informs how management alternatives can influence resources, and then, decision makers can use this information to make decisions. A more efficient process is to directly integrate science and decision-making, where science allows us to learn...

The combined effects of habitat quality, breeder experience and sociobiology on population demography are poorly understood. Natural fire regimes, which influence habitat quality and sociobiology, have been replaced by controlled fire management in most ecosystems. Managing fire mosaics (vegetation at different ages since fire) can be important to...

The eastern indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi) is a federally listed species, most recently threatened by habitat loss and habitat degradation. In an effort to estimate snake survival, a total of 103 individuals (59 males, 44 females) were followed using radio-tracking from January 1998 to March 2004 in three landscape types that had increasing leve...

Many ecosystems are influenced by disturbances that create specific successional states and habitat structures that species need to persist. Estimating transition probabilities between habitat states and modeling the factors that influence such transitions have many applications for investigating and managing disturbance-prone ecosystems. We identi...

Quantifying habitat-specific survival and changes in habitat quality within disturbance-prone habitats is critical for understanding population dynamics and variation in fitness, and for managing degraded ecosystems. We used 18 years of color-banding data and multistate capture-recapture models to test whether habitat quality within territories inf...

Juvenile survival in birds is difficult to estimate, but this vital rate can be an important consideration for management decisions. We estimated juvenile survival of cooperatively breeding Florida Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) in a landscape degraded by fire suppression and fragmentation using data from marked (n = 325) and unmarked juvenil...

Fecundity, the number of young produced by a breeding pair during a breeding season, is a primary component in evolutionary and ecological theory and applications. Fecundity can be influenced by many environmental factors and requires long‐term study due to the range of variation in ecosystem dynamics. Fecundity data often include a large proportio...

Adult nonbreeders are important for the stability and conservation of many species despite that their functional roles are often undervalued. Nonbreeders can buffer breeding population sizes and help their kin raise new generations of offspring, but in high numbers can compete and have negative effects. Long‐term studies are useful for elucidating...

Lacy, R. C., and D. R. Breininger. 2021. Population Viability Analysis (PVA) as a platform for predicting outcomes of management options for the Florida Scrub-Jay in Brevard County. NASA Scientific and Technical Information Report 20210022519 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20210022519.

Quantifying the contribution of habitat dynamics relative to intrinsic population processes in regulating species persistence remains an ongoing challenge in ecological and applied conservation. Understanding these drivers and their relationship is essential for managing habitat‐dependent species, especially those that specialize in transitional ha...

Recovery of listed species requires that land managers and research biologists work together to address the factors affecting population stability and growth. In Florida, an essential factor affecting rare species habitat quality and restoration is fire management. Fire plays an essential role in restoring and maintaining almost every upland ecosys...

Animal home ranges are influenced by diverse intrinsic and extrinsic factors. For example, habitat heterogeneity may affect the spatial distribution of resources leading to larger home ranges where resources are spatially dispersed or, conversely, smaller home ranges where resources are concentrated or abundant. Other landscape features may lead to...

Habitat occupancy models, designed to deal with non‐detection of a target species in occupied sites, have been expanded to allow for false‐positive detections when species are mistakenly detected in unoccupied sites. When a subset of the data are unambiguous detections, such occupancy models can produce reliable results. However, if not properly ac...

The Florida east coast terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin tequesta) is a rare and potentially endangered species that is difficult to survey because of poor detection probability and a patchy distribution. Like many rare species sampling programs, we apply a density and multistate occupancy sampling approach that considered the impacts of imperfect dete...

In the original publication of this article, the authors discovered that they mistakenly used urban instead of urban edge rasters for two of their four study areas. As a result, the urban edge covariates in their analyses were a mixture of urban and urban edge making the inferences regarding urban edge in the original publication incorrect. After c...

We used Cormack-Jolly-Seber capture-recapture analyses to investigate differences in monthly survival of the southeastern beach mouse (Peromyscus polionotus niveiventris) between sexes, between juveniles and adults, and effects due to the presence of transients that can bias survival estimates. We accounted for transients (e.g., nonresidents) by di...

ContextAlthough multi-scale approaches are commonly used to assess wildlife-habitat relationships, few studies have examined selection at multiple spatial scales within different hierarchical levels/orders of selection [sensu Johnson’s (1980) orders of selection]. Failure to account for multi-scale relationships within a single level of selection m...

The combined effects of fire history, climate, and landscape features (e.g., edges) on habitat specialists need greater focus in fire ecology studies, which usually only emphasize characteristics of the most recent fire. Florida scrub-jays are an imperiled, territorial species that prefer medium (1.2-1.7 m) shrub heights, which are dynamic because...

Understanding the factors influencing the degree of spatial overlap among conspecifics is important for understanding multiple ecological processes. Compared to terrestrial carnivores, relatively little is known about the factors influencing conspecific spatial overlap in snakes, although across snake taxa there appears to be substantial variation...

Many snake populations display seasonal variation in movement patterns in response to spatiotemporal variation in prey, mates, and other resources. Eastern Indigo Snakes (Drymarchon couperi) are federally threatened and endemic to the southeastern coastal plain of the United States. Although previous studies have described seasonal variation in D....

Seagrasses are the foundation of many coastal ecosystems and are in global decline because of anthropogenic impacts. We developed competing multistate statistical models to quantify how environmental factors influenced the variability of seagrass state dynamics from 2003-2014, while accounting for time-specific detection probabilities that quantifi...

Reduction of fire hazard is becoming increasingly important in managed landscapes globally. Fuels reduction prescribed burn treatments are the most common form of reducing fire hazard on landscapes around the world but often result in homogenized fuel age structures and habitats. Alternatively, the size of unplanned fires, and hence fire hazard, ca...

Context. Despite the diversity of available home range estimators, no single method performs equally well in all circumstances. It is therefore important to understand how different estimators perform for data collected under diverse conditions. Kernel density estimation is a popular approach for home range estimation. While many studies have evalu...

We studied the population structure and historical demography of the last remaining core population of the threatened southeastern beach mouse (SEBM; Peromyscus polionotus niveiventris) located on a federally protected barrier island complex at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (MINWR) and Cape Canaveral Air Fo...

Abstract Quantifying habitat occupancy of the southeastern beach mouse (Peromyscus polionotus niveiventris) is important for managing this threatened species throughout its limited range. Tracking tubes were used to detect the southeastern beach mouse in coastal areas on the federal lands of the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Statio...

Within the range of the Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens), the only bird species endemic to Florida, there was a need for a population risk assessment that considered the impacts of declining habitat availability and declining fire frequency associated with rapid human population expansion. We developed a population risk model to examine...

Wide-ranging snake species are particularly sensitive to landscape fragmentation, and understanding area requirements is important for their conservation. We used radiotelemetry to quantify how Eastern Indigo Snake home-range sizes were influenced by sex, land cover, and the length of time (weeks) individuals were radio tracked. We found that Easte...

Florida scrub-jays Aphelocoma coerulescens are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to loss and degradation of scrub habitat. This study concerned the development of an optimal strategy for the restoration and management of scrub habitat at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which contains one of the few remaining large p...

The value of information is a general and broadly applicable concept that has been used for several decades to aid in making decisions in the face of uncertainty. Yet there are relatively few examples of its use in ecology and natural resources management, and almost none that are framed in terms of the future impacts of management decisions. In th...

Bird populations occupying managed transitional habitats often have low nest success because optimal habitat conditions are not maintained. In such cases, quantifying determinants of nest survival provides information for habitat maintenance or restoration. Our goal was to determine the current factors affecting nest survival in a managed but decli...

The choices animals make in dispersal are of interest because they describe in part how populations adjust to a changing environment. We investigated which factors influence whether adult Florida Scrub-Jays delay breeding within their natal territories or disperse to breed. Factors considered included those pertaining to individuals (sex, age, pare...

Population declines among birds are often linked to habitat change and associated increases in nest predation rates. In species of conservation concern identifying nest predators is an important first step in developing management strategies to mitigate low nesting success caused by depredation. Because predator composition varies geographically an...

Landcover maps demarcate habitat but might underestimate it where species select features smaller than minimum mapping units used to produce maps. Habitat loss is magnified by fragmentation, which produces edge effects, alters dispersal and natural processes (i.e., fire). We quantified how Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) habitat varied...

A basic element in the success of managing species of conservation concern is knowledge of the species' habitat occupancy Often, predictive species-habitat models are developed from GIS data sources that were intended for purposes other than predicting species habitat occupancy and are of inappropriate scale. In addition, the techniques used to qua...

From 1988 to 2002 we studied the breeding ecology of Florida Scrub-Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) on John F. Kennedy Space Center/Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. We examined phenology, clutch size, hatching failure rates, fledgling production, nest success, predation rates, sources egg and nestling mortality, and the effects of helpers on...

The concept of source and sinks can guide conservation, but empirical studies are needed to demonstrate that this concept applies to the real world. We investigated whether the source-sink concept Could help to clarify the influence of habitat potential (scrub ridge characteristics), population density, and fires (shrub heights) on Florida Scrub-Ja...

The California Least Tern (Sterna antillarum browni) is federally listed as an endangered species. Its nesting habitat has been degraded, and many colony sites are vulnerable to predation and human disturbance. In this study, we developed a metapopulation model for the California least tern that can be used to predict persistence of populations alo...

Source-sink theory provides an approach to identify habitat arrangements heeded to sustain populations in spatially and temporally varying landscapes. Our objective was to investigate whether source-sink ideas could be applied to quantify how habitat arrangements influenced Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) population dynamics, in order t...

Fire frequencies are usually identified for plant communities with little regard to fine-scale (small geographical area) variation. Better knowledge is needed to manage Fire in landscapes having fuels that vary in their propensity to burn, especially where the details of fire patterns are critical for sustaining specialized species. We quantified v...

This report summarizes results of the first eleven years of monthly aerial surveys of wading bird use of foraging habitats within impoundments on the Kennedy Space Center/Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Some impoundments were used much more heavily by wading birds than were others. Analysis suggests that an increase in interspersion of ope...

We focus on approaches to predict the effects of landscape change on population viability by first introducing concepts and emerging ideas. We then review recent applications of metapopulation models and summarize principles for applying metapopulation models in conservation planning. We end by identifying knowledge gaps that prevent broader applic...

We expressed quantitative and qualitative uncertainties in suitability index functions as triangular distributions and used the mechanics of fuzzy numbers to solve for the distribution of uncertainty around the habitat suitability indices derived from them. We applied this approach to a habitat model for the Florida Scrub-Jay. The results demonstra...

Historic landcover dynamics in a scrubby flatwoods (Tel-4) and scrub landscape (Happy Creek) on John F. Kennedy Space Center were measured using aerial images from 1943, 1951, 1958, 1969, 1979, and 1989. Landcover categories were mapped, digitized, geometrically registered, and overlaid in ARC/INFO. Both study sites have been influenced by various...

I measured population dynamics and cooperative breeding in an isolated population of Florida Scrub-lays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) on an urban barrier island in southern Brevard County Florida. In 1992, the scrub-jay population consisted of 29 breeding pairs within six population clusters that comprised two subpopulations, By 1998, the population de...

/ We identified and ranked 108 resident and migratory wildlife taxa on John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) that were vulnerable to local, regional, or global extinction. We ranked taxa based on their vulnerability to extinction, their potential role for maintaining faunal integrity, and the relevance of KSC for maintaining their populations in the U...

We quantified relationships among Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) demography, density, and habitat suitability (HSI). A HSI map was derived using a HSI model, vegetation, and fire patterns that were mapped from aerial imagery. Family size, reproductive success, and survival data were collected at nests and territories between 1988 and 1...

Spatial and temporal patterns in bird abundance within the five-mile airspace at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) on John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida, USA were investigated for purposes of quantifying Bird Aircraft Strike Hazards (BASH). The airspace is surrounded by the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (MINWR) which provides ha...

Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) demography and cooperative breeding were measured from 1988 to 1993 at two sites (HC and T4) on John F. Kennedy Space Center along Florida's Atlantic coast. The results from HC and T4 sites were compared with published results from the Archbold Biological Station in central Florida. The T4 population incr...

The Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) is an indicator of ecosystem integrity of Florida scrub, an endangered ecosystem that requires frequent fire. One of the largest populations of this federally threatened species occurs on John F. Kennedy Space Center/Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Population trends were predicted using popul...

Historical changes in a scrubby flatwoods (Tel-4) and a scrub landscape (Happy Creek) on John F. Kennedy Space Center were measured using aerial images from 1943, 1951, 1958, 1969, 1979, and 1989. Landuse/landcover categories were mapped and digitized into ARC/INFO. Coverages were geometrically registered to one another, overlaid, and areas of land...

Habitat use by Florida scrub jays (Aphelocoma c. coerulescens) was quantified using circular plots. Habitat variation was mapped using high-resolution aerial photography on a site where all Florida scrub jays were color-banded. Nest site selection, nest success, yearling production, and breeder survival were measured within Florida scrub jay territ...

A habitat suitability index (HSI) model for the Florida Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens coerulescens) was tested using a geographic information system for the Tel-4 study site on Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The model used suitability graphs that quantify habitat preference with respect to a given variable to produce spatial estimates of Flori...

Most wading bird habitat at the northern Indian River Lagoon (IRL) complex occurs on Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Monthly aerial and roadside surveys have been conducted for wading birds (Ciconiiformes) on KSC since 1987. Three potential feeding habitats were surveyed: mosquito control impoundments, edges of the estuary, and roadside ditches and can...

Based on papers from the conference held in Fort Pierce, Florida, in 1994, 24 main papers and 18 abstracts are published. After introductory papers on land acquisition as a tool for biological diversity protection, and geological and historical perspectives on the region's biodiversity, the contributions concentrate on the current status of species...

Falconry has been proposed as a method of reducing the bird/aircraftstrike hazard, in addition to current bird control techniques, at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF), John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida, U.S. Bird control programs using falconry have been employed at a number of military and commercial airfields in the U.S., Canada, and...

Buffer zones for space operations provide for a wildlife diversity unsurpassed among most federal facilities in the continental U.S. demonstrating the coexistence possible with one of man's greatest technological achievements. This document ranks 119 resident or migratory wildlife species that are endangered or declining. The ranking system herein...

Densities of gopher tortoises were compared with habitat characteristics in scrub and in flatwood habitats on the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Tortoises were distributed widely among habitat types and did not have higher densities in well-drained (oak-palmetto) than in poorly-drained (saw palmetto) habitats. Fall densities of tortoises ranged fro...

The Biomedical Operations and Research Office (MD) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is using geographic information systems (GIS) technology in its effort to monitor protected wildlife at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Data bases containing environmental variables and demographic data have been compiled for a number of threa...

Kennedy Space Center (KSC), located on Merritt Island on the east coast of central Florida, is one of three remaining major populations of the Florida Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens coerulescens), listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) since 1987. Construction of new facilities by the National Aeronautics and Space A...

The conservation of biological diversity is being recognized as a proactive approach for managing wildlife and wildlife habitat. A specific example of this philosophy on KSC is the implementation of a scrub mitigation program. In an agreement between NASA/KSC and the USFWS, compensation will be made for sonub habitat that is lost to construction. T...

Video system designed for examining interiors of burrows of gopher tortoises, 5 in. (13 cm) in diameter or greater, to depth of 18 ft. (about 5.5 m), includes video camera, video cassette recorder (VCR), television monitor, control unit, and power supply, all carried in backpack. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) poles used to maneuver camera into (and out...

Bird densities within coastal scrub and slash pine flatwoods were compared with time since fire, mean shrub height, number of snags and percent burn. Most shrub-dwelling birds preferred older stands (> 10 yr since last fire) with taller shrubs, or intermediate stands (4 yr since last fire) than recently burned stands (1-2 yr since last fire). Five...

The Florida Scrub Jay is endemic to Florida. The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) provides habitat for one of the three largest populations of the Florida Scrub Jay. This threatened bird occupies scrub, slash pine flatwoods, disturbed scrub, and coastal strand on KSC. Densities of Florida Scrub Jays were shown to vary with habitat characteristics...